Propriety
by El loopy
Summary: Eliza gets a little payback on Henry Higgins in the form of snowballs. Oneshot. Slight Henry x Eliza.


**A/N Not quite sure whether this works in the canon timeline but I am setting it very near to the beginning of Eliza's time at Wimpole Street. I have tried my best with the accent. Enjoy.**

* * *

Propriety

Eliza woke up. It was a sudden start of a wake up. She hadn't quite lost the habit born from years of hard living. Sleep was never deep or easy and the slightest sound out of the ordinary would rouse her in an instant.

On this occasion it was an air of excitement that had descended over the house. Maybe she had heard two servants walk past her door talking with quick, breathless voices. Maybe she had heard the Colonel's excited yell of "By George!" (although she was not to know of this until later). Eliza only knew that the house felt different. She slipped out of bed with a shiver and quickly pulled on her dressing gown. The window seemed a good place to start and as she tugged the curtains apart she came face-to-face with the cause of the uproar.

"Aow!" exploded from her mouth unbidden and with a frown. Snow was falling. Nasty, wet, cold, dirty snow. Falling for quite some time too by the look, and it had settled. Was this what all the excitement was about? 'enry 'iggins was going to have some very sharp, well-aimed barbs prepared for his household being upheaved over a little snow. Eliza gave a small smile at the thought.

* * *

Eliza's prediction was correct. She was down at breakfast, listening to the incessant, excitable chatter of the servants as they crowded the breakfast room, when in stepped the Professor.

"What is this infernal racket?" Everyone fell instantly silent. "Why the Devil are you in here?" No one felt brave enough to say. Eliza watched the proceedings faintly amused, before speaking up herself from her seat at the table.

"I believe they're admirin' the snow." His scorching gaze turned on her. "This is best winder in the house fer doing so," she continued and then added, just to enrage him further, "I tol' 'em I didn't mind."

"Oh, you did, did you?"

Eliza looked at him challengingly, a small smile on her lips. He recognised the bait and refused to bite.

"Out! Damn you all. Everyone out!" The maids scattered in every direction, like the snow outside. As the last one disappeared out the door Professor Higgins followed and bellowed into the corridor after them, "The next person I hear mention the word snow shall be unceremoniously dropped in it. Am I understood?"

The silence was all that was left, with Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle regarding each other across the breakfast table.

"Why must you throw my house into an uproar?"

Eliza took a sip of tea, her table manners much improved.

"Like to see that look on yer face," she replied coolly.

"You little wretch," he proclaimed but with little venom. "At least you don't seem to be losing your head over this snow business. Why the silliest creatures become invariably more so when the sky produces white is beyond me."

At that moment the colonel appeared at the door to the breakfast room, a beaming smile on his face.

"Snow, Higgins! It's snowing!"

"Well observed Pickering."

"Why, isn't it glorious?" The Colonel strode to the very window the maids had recently vacated and stared out. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Eliza had to hide her smile at the look on Henry's face.

"Oh, Pickering. Not you," his voice was heavy with disappointment and the Colonel looked at him in surprise.

"Not me what?"

"I'm 'fraid Colonel Pickerin'," Eliza interjected, "that the Professor don't approve of such silly behaviour as losin' ones 'ead over 'white from ter sky.' Put the wind up the servants 'e did."

Henry glared at Eliza and she merely blinked calmly back.

"Oh tosh, old man!" Pickering smiled. "Give the servants a holiday – let them enjoy it."

"I would ask you not to make such ludicrous suggestions in my presence again," Higgins replied in disgusted disbelief, "and certainly don't let the staff hear you."

Pickering shrugged, still smiling. "No snow in India, Higgins. Haven't seen it in years." His eyes lit on Eliza. "You must at least give Miss Doolittle the morning off, so we can go enjoy it."

Eliza's good humour vanished.

"What?"

"Don't say 'what' say 'pardon'," Higgins chastised before adding derisively, "I imagine you would like that wouldn't you, you insect, to go waste the morning in the snow…"

"No."

Her voice interrupted him. Stern. Solid. Final.

"No, what?" he snapped.

"No, I would not like to go out in the snow."

The room was silent for a good few seconds before the Colonel exclaimed, "Why ever not Miss Doolittle?" at the same time that Higgins remarked, "Occasionally she does surprise me with a whit of sense."

"Dirty 'orrid stuff is snow." Eliza answered the Colonel's question. Soot stained black, churned up in the gutters, slush under carriage wheels. Icy, cold, slippery mud. So pure white and beautiful in the sky before being trodden under foot. Sullied and trampled. Like all of them round where she'd come from. It was a depressing reminder.

"Wet'n'cold," she continued. "Soaks through yer boots and socks in but a moment, then you have ter walk in ice all day with nowhere ter dry. Not like we 'ad any fires."

Higgins nodded. "See. Sensible girl. Let's get to lessons."

"Now, now, Higgins. Wait a moment."

Pickering sat next to Eliza at the table. His heart went out to the poor girl who did not know that snow could be enjoyed as an adult – even one as old as him.

"Miss Doolittle, if I can promise you a warm bath and dry socks when you return indoors, will you join me outside in the snow?"

She cut him a suspicious look.

"Colonel…" she began.

"Please?" he interrupted gently. "I shall look a very foolish old man out there alone."

"Indeed, you would," Higgins remarked derisively, unwittingly helping his friend's cause. Eliza glared at her teacher before turning back to the Colonel.

"If that's what you'd like I can be obligin'"

"Capital!" Pickering exclaimed and hurried from the room hollering, "Mrs Pearce, our coats if you please…"

* * *

Eliza stood by the back door of the house, utterly dumbfounded. These toffs even had better snow. It lay in an expansive sheet over the small back garden, pure and white, only marred by tiny sets of bird prints. It wasn't soot stained or black. She reached out a finger and touched the tiny pile on the railings. It fell apart like powder.

"Best sort of snow this," Pickering remarked and lent her his arm.

"Aoh! We mus'n't spoil it," Eliza protested but Pickering smiled.

"Walking in it is part of the fun, Miss Doolittle."

He led her out into the garden. He was right, it was fun. The crunch under her feet gave her a shiver of delight.

"Miss Doolittle," the Colonel interrupted her quiet enjoyment, "have you ever built a snowman?"

* * *

The laughter coaxed Henry Higgins out of his study and to the back door. There on the lawn was a snowman of moderate height, adorned with one of Pickering's hats…and was that his pipe?

"Where did you get that from?" he snapped, trying to ignore the chill air and his lack of a coat.

"Oh, come now Higgins, it's for the cause."

"Not from me it isn't. Now tell Eliza to fetch my damn pipe and come inside for her lessons. There has been enough of this silliness for one…"

The snowball hit him square on the chest, spraying wet, icy powder into his face. He stalled in shock before his eyes met his attackers. Eliza stood in a braced position, cheeks flushed pink from the cold, eyes on fire. He had ignored her presence to his peril. A new snowball was loaded into her hands.

"Now, 'ere's a funny thing," she said with a bite. "Ain't forgotten this."

Henry was annoyed…and yet strangely exhilarated by the sight of her standing there, challenging him.

"You wretch! You ungrateful wretch. Put that weapon down this instant…"

He just had time to dodge the snowball and it shattered on the wall behind him.

"Pickering!" he bellowed but the older man was laughing too hard to respond. "Right, it is to be war then."

He felt the third snowball hit his shoulder as he gathered the snow on the railing and threw it at his adversary. He missed, and she shrieked with laughter.

"This is payback 'enry 'iggins, you'll see."

Snowballs flew between them but before many minutes Henry's supply by the door was gone and Eliza still had the whole garden at her disposal.

"I demand that you desist with this tomfoolery at once," he bellowed but merely got a victorious laugh in reply.

"Surrender then."

He bristled. That wasn't going to happen, and he'd be damned if he would retreat. There seemed to be only one course of action open to him. With long strides he stepped out into the garden, ignoring the cold and icy water soaking into his slippers. Eliza yelped in shock as he approached her, the momentary paralysis being her undoing. With an unceremonious gesture the Professor swept her off the floor, into his arms and, with one hearty shriek from herself, deposited her in the nearest, deepest snowdrift.

"I say Sir!" Pickering protested.

"That ain't roight," Eliza said breathlessly from the snow, her voice feeble with her accusation. "Ain't proper."

Henry grinned down at her. "Of the two of us you are the most covered in snow. I win."

"I'm a good girl, I am," she stared up at him, hair a tangled mess, strands plastered to her flushed face.

"Good girls don't throw snowballs like that," he responded with a quiet, teasing tone.

There was a change then, in the air, in her face. He felt the spark of it, the flare, and suddenly this was a whole lot less innocent.

"Higgins!" Pickering gave his timely interruption. "You cannot just go tossing young women in the snow."

"And why ever not?" the Professor rallied, taking the excuse to step away from a hazardous situation. "You saw. She attacked me."

"Are you all right my dear?" the Colonel asked, helping Eliza to her feet.

"Yes, yes," she answered too quickly, unable to stop the teeth chatter.

"Quick my dear, let's get you inside before you take ill."

Pickering bustled her into the house, and handed her over to Mrs Pearce, followed closely by Higgin's who was starting to shiver himself now the adrenaline had died. What had he been thinking throwing her in the snow like that?

"Professor?" The voice stilled him in the hallway and he glanced up to see Eliza on the stairs, wrapped in a towel over her clothes. She grinned at him.

"I'll win next time. You wait an' see," and she allowed herself to be swept away.

Higgin's couldn't quite keep the smile off his own face as he went to change.

Propriety could go hang.


End file.
